As sintered metal bonded abrasive articles for the purposes as mentioned above, those of copper-tin basis have so far been used extensively. They exhibit, however, low grinding ratios, in other words, short life, and poor rates of stock removal.
As regards another type of sintered metal bonded abrasive articles, i.e., sintered metal bonded diamond abrasive articles of nickel basis, while a sintering temperature of 1000.degree. C. or more, at which rapid graphitizing of diamond begins to occur, is necessary for preparation thereof because of the high melting point of nickel, lower temperature sintering of nickel has become possible by the use of more finely devided nickel powders, thereby developing a sintered abrasive article having an excellent fining function as well as an improved holding force of diamond grits (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 83190/1978). Furthermore, in order to prevent the clogging of nickel base abrasive articles during long runs of fining, a sintered metal bonded diamond abrasive article exhibiting improved grinding ratios as well as increased rates of stock removal has been developed by the technique wherein an element capable of forming an intermetallic compound with nickel is added to a nickel base to precipitate and disperse a hard and brittle phase of the intermetallic compound in the base (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 7517/1980).
However, the latter sintered metal bonded abrasive article of nickel basis gives stock removal rates fluctuating to a great extent with variations, due to prior roughing process, in surface roughness of works to be ground, and this constitutes a serious obstacle to its practical use in certain applications.